The Coffeehouse

Back! Photo above is taken by yours truly. 100% unadulterated beautiful nature.

Annnnnnnd, I'm out again.

Final destination, still unknown.

This is what happens when you decide to pack the same day you are traveling, you neglect your precious blog. So sad. I am off to the cottage in about 15-ish minutes and I still have to finish packing. My room is a mess, so I don't know if I packed a mess, or some actual clothes. The past hour has been the dumping and un-dumping of things, do not ask me what it consists of. Let's just hope that I will kinda, sorta match, and kinda, sorta look "okay" ("decent" may be asking too much).

Be back in a week!

Mom is a news addict. Mama, bikafi akhbar! N'3ama albna, f'himna, a3deen bi2atlo biba3id, wo mafi shee jdeed!

Mom, enough with the news! We get it, they're killing each other and it's the same old!

She's dwelling and it's not helping. The news reporting is crap, and that's not helping either. I keep thinking of the movie "Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land", and I notice the subtle undertones, the type of words they decide to use, the simple sentence structures that we hear in newscasts and tend to take lightly. We're gullible, we eat it all up.

August is approaching, faster than ever, as uncertain as before, and Mom continues to dwell.

With every news report, my heart sinks a little bit lower, beats a little faster, and aches a whole lot more.

What's going on? Why's it happening? Who's gonna stop it?

Why don't two wrongs make a right? Why can't history be rewritten? Why are there dumb people in high places?

What am I gonna do?

This past weekend, the governing authority at my house did not allow me to sleep in. I wasn't even allowed to wake up when I normally would on weekends (9:30-ish...sleeping-in for me is like 10:30 :p). On Sunday, my mom woke me up at quarter to eight because she wanted to go cherry picking. I love my mom and I would wake up early to do anything with her because, she always complains that I don't spend enough time with her, but cherry picking? I had to say no.

Our fridge has become what you would call a fruitidgerator, all it has is berries. Blueberries, strawberries, and raspberries and cherries from our backyard, not to mention more cherries and raspberries neighbours and friends have given us. So I wasn't exactly sure why she wanted to go cherry picking, we already had enough to feed a small island nation, plus, there wasn't really anymore room in our fruitidgerator for more cherries (How about bread-picking? Milk-picking? Other foods needed to sustain the small island nation). Turns out, she just wanted to try the act of cherry picking at a farm establishment. So we ended up going and picking about 20 pounds of cherries. Except...

The cherries were covered with white pesticide residue. And although, they looked okay, the fact that I could see and feel the pesticide residue made them very unappealing and I didn't even want to touch them, let alone eat them later. Once we got home, my mom started experimenting with preserves and jams and mixed all our cherry collections together and I was no longer able to distinguish the normal cherries from the commercially toxic ones. Sigh. I would go into a whole rant about the health and environmental implications of pesticide use, and the socio-economic and environmental hazards large commercial farms pose, but I am just a lowly government employee who is an accomplice to underground water contaminators.

I have this craving for maraschino cherries, anyone know of an alum-free maraschino cherries recipe?

France, what? Huh? Yeah? I thought so!!

Now Materazzi would be perfect for Rock Star Supernova with all his tattoos. Dammit, he'd be perfect for me, he wears my favourite number, 23! I love you, will you marry me?

I don't know what this crap about Materazzi saying something racist to Zidane is about, but it's still not an excuse for Zidane's poor sportsmanship. And I don't understand how he could still get the Golden Ball, it's as if they've retracted the discipline the red card was supposed to give him, "You've been kicked off the field and suspended 'cause you head-butted your opponent, but you still get the award for best player" ?! It brings up that whole issue about whether being a good athlete is only about your physical strength and skill on the playing field, or does it also include being a good role model and having good sportsmanship? Just like the whole issue of Todd Bertuzzi, sure he may play good hockey, but he freakin gave his opponent a concussion and broke his neck, yet he still got to represent Canada at the Winter Olympics (?!?!?!).

Ah well, VIVA ITALIA!

In the midst of all the pathetically terrible summer series and annoying reality "talent" shows, there is one that reassures us not all hope is lost, ROCK STAR! 

Honestly. It's got all the elements needed to become a good show: guys, good music, piercings, and tattoos. It's a done deal, give em the Emmys already! (has a reality show ever qualified for an Emmy?). I really enjoyed last year's Rock Star INXS, however, I'm still bitter about that full-of-himself sleazy illegitimate child J.D. Fortune who is now the lead singer of INXS. He didn't deserve it and I get squeamish everytime I hear their new songs on the radio, eww. The two other runner-ups were much better, Suzie McNeil and Marty (yum) Casey (who sang this amazingly creepy version of Britney Spear's "Hit Me Baby One More Time"), but I guess they needed someone quick at BS-ing during interviews..yuck. This year's Rock Star Supernova is okay so far and although the lady rockers appear to be so much more talented than the dude rockers, I can't see Tommy (double yum) Lee choosing a female lead vocal, but we shall see....

ROCK ON!

I subscribe to dozens of listservs, mostly activist/human rights/current events ones. I subscribe as an attempt to be "in the know", to keep in touch, and to coordinate events among student organizations.

And they are all useless.

Because for the most part, people use them for email wars, passive "activism" (as in they write paragraphs and paragraphs of political jargon, but don't physically contribute), or just plain crap. This new listserv I subscribed to was for the purpose of creating some "truly representative national organization", instead I just get a bunch of emails from middle-aged men claiming they have the best way to start this up and regurgitating what others have said as their own, yet no one is really agreeing with anyone else. I get these 2 page emails from about 5 people a day, for the past two weeks. You do the math. Nothing has been decided yet, and no projects are even in the horizon. It's crazy, no matter what level you decide to get involved in, grassroots, or on a more structured regional/national level, you get nothing done and get stuck with administrative, technical stuff, never getting around to contributing to the actual cause. GAAH! I can't deal with this anymore...

I bought a candy apple this afternoon when I went out for the Canada Day celebrations, and I JUST got to the apple part. How exciting is that?!

Super exciting. I've been waiting for this moment for a very long time.

In other news, I thoroughly enjoyed being Canadian today, pigging out on red and white cake, getting a Canada flag tattoo, and saying "eh" every other second. Eh.

I'm staying up and writing this post simply because I CAN stay up and type away and lose some sleep and sleep in tomorrow and not go to work! I'm having such a hard time getting myself to sleep early to wake up early, get to work on time and not pass out at my desk. How do people do it?!

Something I've noticed lately is that I'm starting to forget things easily. I used to be one who never forgot a face, I would recite the names of the kids that were in my grades and classes from years ago. But a couple of weeks ago, I was on the subway with a friend and this girl who looks so familiar comes up to me and says hi and we start talking and I cannot, for the life of me, remember where I know this girl from. Ten minutes into our conversation, my friend mentions a professor and it hits me that this girl was in on of my classes last year. It took me TEN minutes to realize who this person was!! My friend of course knew who she was all along. And on thursday night, I was also downtown, on my way back home, and another gal approaches me and starts talking, and she looks familiar so I play along. Even after she starts naming people from highschool, I still have no clue what type of relationship we had, and highschool was not that long ago my dear friends. I had to look her up in the yearbook when I got home! Memory games anyone?

In other news, shopping for August is like going on a mission for everything dark, plain, practical and borderline drabby, and I mean that in the nicest most enthusiastic way possible. It is the rejection of all that is glittery, frilly, lacy, and bright. It's quite depressing.

Happy Canada Day! We shall celebrate our independence from England, a decrease in the GST, and hopefully, England loosing their next soccer match! :p